Previously, portable gas-fired cooking devices have generally been one of two types, a barbecue grill of the type in which the gas element heats the food indirectly by utilizing briquettes known as "lava rock" to absorb and radiate heat to the food, or a camp stove in which the gas element heats the food on the stove directly in a frying pan or the like. Each type of cooking device has its own advantages and drawbacks. The former type of device is more suitable for the barbecuing of meats as it allows fat from the meat to drop onto the lava rock where it is burned off, adding flavor to the cooked meat without making the cleaning of the cooking device overly difficult. However the lava rock barbecues are slow to heat and cannot concentrate the heat on a small area and so are not particularly efficient for boiling water for coffee or the like. Also the presence of the lava rock makes this type of device less desirable for carrying on a camping trip.
The latter type of device, the camp stove having one or more gas-fired burners adjacent the grill, is efficient for concentrating heat on a coffee pot or frying pan. Such stoves cannot, however, serve to usefully barbecue meats.
Various attempts have been made to combine the advantages of the portable gas-fired barbecue with the portable gas-fired camp stove in one unit. For example Canadian patent no. 1,221,286 issued May 5, 1987 to Camper Delight Sales Corp. discloses a portable cooking device which includes both a camp stove and a gas-fired barbecue in one portable unit. In this device, the housing has two concave cooking sections hinged together, one of the cooking sections housing a gas-fired cooking element for a camp stove, and the other section containing a gas-fired barbecue. The barbecue section consists of a curved heat reflector dish which is spaced from the sides of the walls of the barbecue by a heat deflector plate, a gas-fired burner tube located centrally within the reflective dish, flame shields above and below the burner tube, and a support frame for supporting lava rocks above the burner. The stove section also has a heat reflector pan under the dual elements. This design is too heavy and bulky too be practical as a portable camp stove.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,446,846 issued May 8, 1984 to Columbia Industries Corp. discloses another combination camp stove and barbecue in which two grate modules are provided so that the barbecue and stove operations can be conducted simultaneously side by side. This design also incorporates lava rocks and so shares the same disadvantages as lava rock barbecues in respect of bulkiness and lack of portability, and further has restricted space for cooking due to the division of the sole cooking area.
There is therefore a need for a compact and convenient portable camp stove design which incorporates both a gas-fired barbecue and a standard camp stove.